


Almost More Storm than Sky

by Night-Mare (Aoife)



Series: Almost More Storm Than Sky [1]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Author loves to chat in the Comments, Cloudy Rain Squalo, Flame Active Character(s), My First Work in This Fandom, Pre-Canon, Sawada Iemitsu's A+ Parenting, Stormy Sky Xanxus, Timoteo Vongola's A+ Parenting, Unconventional Uses for Dying Will Flames, Varia Arc, Varia Basil, Varia being Varia, Xanxus Uses the Word 'Fuck' in all it's Grammatical Variations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-09-10 21:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 10,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8940949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoife/pseuds/Night-Mare
Summary: Setting up the ground work for an AU. Ottava is perhaps more perceptive than Nono, and changes trickle from that.BEING REWRITTEN - NEW VERSION HERE





	1. Stormy-Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [Aoife_Prompt_Collection_KHR](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Aoife_Prompt_Collection_KHR) collection. 



> Chapters 1-8 are set pre-Canon  
> Chapters 9+ are set in the Varia Arc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Timoteo is an idiot, she decides.

It happens like this. Ottava looks at the youngest grandchild her son has just presented her and sees what her stupid, stupid son has missed. Sees with eyes that learnt to see what was _actually_ there to survive a World War. 

Sees Xanxus’ flames and has to resist the temptation to take her idiot son’s head off. Yes, the boy is the spit of Secondo, but she can also see the underlying differences in the bone structure. Perhaps it comes from the boy’s mother, but Storm flames that strong, strong enough that it’s almost impossible to tell whether the boy is a Storm or a Sky, have to come from a known line.

She’s of the opinion that the boy’s mother is the Vongola link, probably a matrilineal bastard line from Primo and that had been crossed back in a few times, and that he’d in fact been sired by a Storm (a cross that no one has tried since it produced Secondo _for a reason_ ). Then later, she feels the hollow at the core of her youngest grandson, and that confirms her opinion. He’s almost more Storm than Sky (and that’s a scary thought, given how much of a hellion he is). It's close enough that the she thinks the reason for his instability is the fact that he _craves_ a Sky of his own as much as he _craves_ Guardians.

(Sometimes, if she’s being kind to her Sky son, she thinks that he knows, and is trying to bond the boy to one of his natural sons as their Storm Guardian, but that’s exceedingly generous given her son’s occasional bouts of idiocy.)

It's been years since she had a Storm Guardian, and given a choice she wouldn't seek another, but to stabilise the boy, something needed to be done.

She reaches out a thread of her Sky flame to him the next time Xanxus comes to visit her, and is relieved when rather than it being burnt away, his head tilts like he's listening to her call. He doesn't take her up on the offer (she suspects it's the first such call the child has _actually_ heard), but he does return, and he's a little more stable around her.

(He reminds her, painfully, of her longest lasting Storm Guardian and his death - and the death of her favourite Lightening Guardian - at the hands of Benito's thugs. She suspects he can taste that in her call, but he appreciates the offer, and it's honesty. Her son claims Xanxus has very little of their famed intuition, but she disagrees. It has instead become very, very focused. His accuracy is preternatural, but otherwise it might as well be absent.)


	2. Cloudy Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Storm-souled Sky meets a Cloud-souled Rain.

She is not at all surprised by the Superbi-boy that her youngest grandson drags home. His Rain guardian is loud and flashy, and absolutely in love with his blade - and his Sky. That mask he wears would deceive all but those most used to looking for traps - but that ability to see through traps had saved her life more than once.

What does surprise her is that the child is a _Cloudy_ Rain, with all of his flame-types' vices. (She has danced with enough Clouds, proud Cats that they are, to recognise what is happening when _he_ claims the Varia and begins the preparations to lay them at Xanxus' feet.)

When she realises where the dance that the boys are engaged in must lead, she almost wishes that the Superbi-child was female. It would make life easier for her grandson, but rewriting fate had never been within her reach, even when she still wore the Vongola Sky Ring. Instead she sends the young okama Sun her idiot son is trying to foist on her to talk to the Superbi-boy, to make sure he's ready for what will happen.

For a Sky, there were only two response to harmonising - acceptance or rejection, but the nature of that acceptance or rejection lay in the hands of the Sky harmonised with. And for as Stormy a Sky as Xanxus was, the options were a little more base than they'd ever been for her - they'd fuck, they'd fight or they'd feed other hungers (she'd finally harmonised with one of her wartime Guardians over a shared piece of chocolate in a freezing mountain hide out, but the boys were _made_ for the Varia, and had more esoteric hungers to be fed), or one of them would flee. (She's never seen a Storm flee from _anything_.)

She wonders if she should warn her son and her nephew that they're playing with fire, that the Guardian that's just surrendered himself into her grandson's hands is as capable of wearing the Cloud Ring as he is of wearing the Rain.

But it's their own fault if they don't look; she's beginning to wish her idiot son would hand off command to one of the next generation but he's clinging on to power, loathe to release the Vongola rings to any of his children, given that none of them have a complete set of Guardians.

Talbot owes her a favour; her death gift for her Storm-child will be rings for _all_ his Elements.


	3. Elder Sky teaches Rain

She knows she's dieing when she summons the Superbi-boy without her grandson, and teaches him things that no-one had thought to show him yet. Even though her Storm-child was flame active, it was a rough, raw, self-taught thing that left him in no position to teach others - even if he'd had the aptitude for it.

It exhausts her to teach him how to summon and maintain his primary flame, but she pushes herself to do so anyway; it's quite possibly the only thing that will save Xanxus from going into Discord when she does die. (Not that he was one of her guardians, but he leant on her in a way that could, so easily, have become such a bond.)

By the time he had left her sick room, though, Xanxus' Rain had a sparkling blue flame that was willing to dance over his hands, a ring on his right hand, and she had one less regret.

She dies two days later.


	4. Cloudy-Rain retrieves Sky

Xanxus howled in pain, as a bond he hadn't realised existed, snapped. At the Varia's castle, Squalo's head snapped up as his Sky teetered on the edge of Discord, threatening to swallow him as well.

Squalo doesn't remember the drive from the castle to the Vongola Mansion; he was concentrating on holding on to his Sky's sanity. He was only able to piece things together afterwards from the intercepted police reports. He also has no idea how he had enough self-possession when he arrived at the Iron Fort to only use the flat of his blade on the idiots that tried to stand between him and his fragmenting Sky. Nor does he remember when Lussuria, Ottavo's Sun had begun to trail after him, a warm-but-spiky glow at his back. 

The door he finally stops at - the ornate door to Xanxus's suite of rooms in the main house - is sealed by an interesting application of Sky's Harmony that had turned the door to the same stone as the walls and reeked of the old man's Flame. He has no idea how he knows that his Sky is trapped in there, but that's where Xanxus is.

He has a couple of small explosive charges tucked into pouches on his sword belt, but nothing able to break through a wall capable of standing up to his Boss's Flame. A flash of purple catches his attention from the corner of eye, and he remembers Ottavo's explanation of two days earlier, about his primary and secondary flames, their properties, and her warning that accessing his Cloud Flames could take him years, but this was a desperate situation.

He feeds his desperation to his own flame as Ottavo taught him, and reaches. 

Rain flames dance around his hands, and his heart sinks. Tranquility will help once he reaches Xanxus, but there's nothing it can help him now. He feeds that to the flame as well, feeds it his desperation to save his Sky from Discord - _his_ Sky, the foundation of _his_ Territory. 

The flames dancing around his hands shift - with glacial speed - from blue to purple and he barely contains his whoop of glee as he feeds them rapidly into one of the charges, sets it's timer, attaches it to the wall and ducks round the corner.

The resulting explosion rocks Squalo where he's sheltering, and dust fills the corridor. The corners of his lips curl up into something that bears more resemblance to a smile than a snarl, but only just - there's no such thing as overkill, and he looks forward to using that trick again on a mission. 

(Being Xanxus' _bonded_ guardian comes with a degree of awareness of the youngest Vongola that's already saved his life once or twice - and he's glad that his boss chooses to throw glasses, rather than the storm tainted sky flames that came so easily to him, and that had a tendency to destroy anything they touched. That awareness has him hitting the floor and yanking the okama Sun down with him as a wave almost entirely composed of Storm Flames washed out of the training room at head height.)

Xanxus stands in the midst of the destruction, eyes and hands glowing dark red, sense lost to anguish, and Squalo cursed viciously. He's fast, and he's strong, but Xanxus outclasses him by a wide margin - it's the reason he chose to kneel and submit rather than wait for him to take the Varia from him the way he'd taken it from Tyr.

The okama hisses something that Squalo doesn't catch the specifics of, though the tone is appreciative and he has to agree - Xanxus is striking at the height of his rage, and the killing intent radiating from him made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. What the hell had the old man been thinking, trapping his boss with only his rage for company?

(He'll pay for his next action later, will find his ass being kicked from one end of the Varia's castle to the other end, but now he's broken through Nono's containment of his youngest son, he had to fix the mess he's made before the Boss does something he regrets. Easier to ask forgiveness, and all that bullshit.)

It takes all of his hard won agility to get close enough to Xanxus to make skin contact with him, to overwhelm his system with Cloud-fed Rain flames, and the Storm raging in his Boss' system almost eats through them, except Xanxus' Sky Flames purr at the presence of one of his Guardians rather than fighting the foreign Flame. Squalo barely catches him as he folds into Tranquillity, and he's glad for the okama's help in extracting Xanxus from the Vongola HQ.

(They're almost stopped, forcing Squalo to declare himself - and then demonstrate he meant the damn declaration - as Rain to the Boss' Sky. Fortunately it had been Visconti that had intercepted them and Nono's Cloud recognised a battle not worth fighting.)


	5. Acquiring Sun

When Xanxus wakes from his Tranquility induced nap, fortunately in a training room deep in the Varia’s castle, he makes a half-hearted attempted to kill Squalo.

(Or at least that’s how Squalo looks at it in hindsight; the Boss doesn’t use his pistols, and he’s already damn well aware he’s a crack shot with those.)

Lussuria harmonises with the pair of them in the aftermath, when he jumps into heal the wounds they’ve inflicted on each other. 

(And why did no-one tell him that the Guardians harmonised with each other through their damn Sky? He’d only just got use to Xanxus being in the back of his fucking head!)

They end up in a giggling heap on the floor of the training room, high as a kite off the rush of harmony, and his and the Boss’ adrenaline, and none of them would ever admit that’s how it had happened - the lies in the future would get more and more ridiculous, especially with their public personas.

(The most ‘realistic’ version he hears, from one of the Varia’s baby Rains in the future, is that Xanxus brought home a dead mark, and he and Lussuria bonded over corpse disposal. It fits the _mythology_ of the Varia, at least, but no-one of Varia Quality is that stupid when it comes to missions.)

The Sun slides right into place within the castle, though Squalo soon discovers that the older man has a disturbing tendency to mother anyone he’s close to. He also takes a great deal of glee in torturing the homophobia out of the mooks and wresting control of the medical wing from the previous Sun officer.

(No one mentions that said Sun officer’s body doesn’t show up for another six weeks, and is suspiciously _clean_. Everyone who gravitates towards the Varia is broken in one way or another, it’s just a case of managing the damage. Anyway, the previous Sun officer had had his peccadillos.)


	6. Sun finds Baby Storm

Lussuria brings home the bedraggled eight year old home from a mission and Squalo almost asks why. (It's not that he suspects Lussuria of being that way - how could he when he and Xanxus both _know_ the okama's tastes, but there is the appearance of things.) Then the Boss comes stomping down from his office, hand full of Storm Flames, angry at the disturbance of his sleep. The child lights up with the purest Storm Flames that any of them have ever seen, and launches himself at Xanxus with an incomprehensible cry on his lips.

Storm meets Storm and that's a lot of paperwork they're going to have to do to authorise the repairs to the castle. Perhaps he could make Lussuria do it as he brought the child home? Then the Boss brings his Sky Flames to bear, the child almost melts, and Squalo wants to snarl at their Sun as another bond blooms hard and fast and vicious, a thing of crazed mirrors and bloody images.

The child is a boy, who calls himself Belphegor, and the execution of his twin and parents - for cause, no less - was most decidedly Varia Quality. He also hadn't realised just how much of a soft spot for kids the Boss had under certain circumstances, because the bond tasted very different from either theirs, or the one with their Sun. (He ignored that, as best as he could, lest he dwell on the why and what he wanted.)


	7. A Gift of Lightning

Levi is an apology present as far as Squalo can figure out. 

Nono sends him across from the Iron Fort two and a half weeks after Lussuria is trailed home by the boy who insists on being called “Prince” Belphegor. He has to give the child credit; he is in fact a genius, at least as smart as Xanxus is, for that matter, but there are gaping holes in his education and he has a temper that equals the Boss’s. It had only taken a single - Tranquility augmented - whack from Squalo’s rapier that left him unconscious for an afternoon before Bel had stopped throwing knifes at him for no good reason. 

He was Xanxus' senior Guardian, and had won command of the Varia _himself_ , before he'd handed it to someone it suited better, and he wasn't going to be anyone's fucking minder. (Other than the Boss', but the Boss made him _want_ to kneel. He was fairly sure that he'd do _anything_ for Xanxus. Including, as Xanxus had asked him, fight him tooth and nail when he demanded something Squalo knew was _wrong_.)

Levi is an active Lightning, who fights with _parasols_ of all things. Fairly strong, but Mafia raised and it showed. (He's met one or two lightning who've grown up civilian that have more, ah, personality than the ones who've get dragged all the way through mafia school and even the Vongola's Flame training.) There are tells in his body language, and in his slavish devotion to Xanxus - who finds the way his behavior grates on Squalo's nerves amusing. 

That amusement however is insufficient for them to bond, for which Squalo is undeniably grateful. The idea of having Levi's hysterical adoration of Xanxus in the back of his head, with the way he's starting to appreciate Lussuria's views on the aesthetic of bruising is, and the way Belphegor's mirrors have expanded his mind (even as he has to keep a tighter rein on his desire to wash away his Sky's concerns about the mess the Ninth is making of the Familiga with an ocean of blood and his own body).

The idea of being forced to share the Boss with further individuals - especially ones that he is yet to trust aches somewhere deep inside. (Xanxus is strong. Strong enough that he will have to share his Sky with at least one more bonded Guardian, and judging by the way he has accepted Bel, despite not needing a Storm, there will in fact be four more, but not yet. Please God not until they're all more stable.)


	8. Where there's Mist

Viper - Mammon, as they declare their Varia name will be - is an unwelcome confirmation of exactly how strong Xanxus actually _is_. The fact that the Mist Arcobaleno is even willing to entertain the prospect of working for them, has decided that they will take up residence amongst them will bring enough attention to the occupants of the Varia compound. If word was to slip out that Xanxus had succeeded in binding one of the Strongest Seven to him as a Guardian rather than it just being that the Mist had decided that they wanted to spend a few years killing people and being catered to - the thought made Squalo shudder.

(It amused him though, that even with the awareness of the other Guardians that their respective bonds with Xanxus brought, he had yet to be able to figure out Mammon’s gender. Their gift to the bond became apparent the first time after their bonding, when Squalo had been negotiating a complex contract for the Prince’s services and he walked away from the table with twice as much money as he’d originally asked for.)

Having a Mist of the Arcobaleno’s strength made things possible that otherwise wouldn’t have been, and that brings with it temptation. Temptation whose flames are fanned further every time they are summoned to the Iron Fort. For a man who had spent time within the Varia compound, who had once had a Varia name, Timoteo Vongola was an old coward. Reluctant to share power, reluctant to trust that his sons could lead the Family in his place. 

(Not that the old man was wrong; even now Xanxus was closest to having a complete set of Guardians, only needing to bond a Lightning - even if that would leave Squalo needing to fulfil both Rain and Cloud roles - and he’d gone out of his way to avoid telling him that he was as close as he was to a full set. That said a lot about his half-brothers, much of it less than complementary.)

A Mist within the compound meant that - providing no-one irritated said Mist too much - that they could at least relax within their home base, could think and talk about what might _have_ to be done to keep the Family strong without worrying about being overheard.


	9. Sky, Returned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. There is, potentially, at least, a chapter missing here, dealing with the Cradle Incident in this 'verse, but it's been fighting me, tooth and nail. However, as the Cradle Incident still happens, and still ends in the same way, I decided to carry on and return with the additional chapter at a later date if and when it gets finished.

Xanxus is dumped on their doorstep. Bleeding and frostbitten, and it's only the fact that he has four bonded Guardians inside the compound that saves him. It takes him weeks to recover; who released him is a mystery that no-one can figure out the answer to. It certainly wasn't them.

Squalo has had command of the Varia for eight aggravating years. Eight years where he's barely been able to feel his Sky, and he's been responsible for this shit show. Eight years of biting his tongue till it bleeds, and trying to keep a leash on his fellow Guardians, of doing what he had to. With all four known heirs dead - or if not, missing, as far as the rest of the Mafia were aware - the vultures have been circling.

That had perhaps been their saving grace; the Varia has reemerged every generation in slightly different forms, but they were and always would be the Family's last line of defense, shock troops and boogiemen as much as they were assassins, and the lack of heirs meant that they had a lot of work to do, keeping the “peace”.

It had meant that Nonno couldn't afford to purge Xanxus' Officers. They were too good, too useful, too hard to replace. Too highly skilled and far too hard to kill; the last Varia Quality Officer to die had been Tyr at Squalo’s own hands, eight years earlier.

Instead they were worked hard, and the lure of the return of their Sky dangled in front of them. None of them particularly feared death or injury, so those sticks were at best ineffective, and in at least Mammon’s case, it was entirely possible that killing them would both have significant repercussions for the Alliance, given the position of the Giglio Nero Donna as the Sky Arcobaleno and not actually take; Arcobaleno were damn hard to kill.

Squalo, at least as far as the Alliance is concerned is the head of the Varia, even when they’ve nursed Xanxus back to health, as they’ve not declared his return. He’s been avoiding the Alliance’s Skies to the best of his ability, or when it was unavoidable, paying Mammon for an illusion that implied everything was as it had been.

Feelers suggest that the residents of the Iron Fort aren’t even aware of the fact that he’s been released - and while they’ve learnt the hard way that Nonno is a fantastic actor, even he has tells. And as he’s once again offered Squalo the prospect of his Sky (he’s the only one who had confirmed - at least to Visconti - that he was in fact a bonded Guardian, though they must surely suspect that he wasn’t the only one) being returned to him, he can be fairly sure that Xanxus’ release was unofficial at best.

A healing Xanxus, even one with an immense backlog of paperwork, was generally speaking a motivated Xanxus. Even if all he was motivated to do was find a way to take revenge on whoever had injured him. And he’d found a possibility buried in the reports Squalo had used to keep him in bed whilst he finished healing.

A pattern that suggested things to his intuition. Suggested that there was something - someone - that he needed to meet in Japan. And that that person would be his best chance at what he  _needed_.


	10. Chasing Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here starts the intersection with canon, and the start of more obvious changes.

Squalo had been aware of Basil's existence since the boy first went Active. While he himself wasn't the most sensitive of Flame Users - that would be Mammon among the Varia - he was a fellow Rain Active, which made the brat's use of Rain on some of the more highly strung staff in the Iron Fort very obvious to him.

He wasn't entirely sure where the lunatic Sky who notionally ran the CEDEF had found Basil, but the boy had appeared about two years after Xanxus had been frozen and gone Active shortly afterwards. In hindsight, knowing that the CEDEF had been doing research on how to trigger Dying Will Mode a little less traumatically, Basil had probably been one of the test subjects. He was bright enough, though and Rain was a useful Flame type for the role CEDEF played most of the time, so he'd been following Sawada around as his apprentice ever since.

What he also wasn't sure about was why, rather than still being in Italy with _his_ Sky who was still healing, he was hunting down a remarkable skilled (close to Varia Quality, truth be told) fifteen year old. Xanxus had obviously been taking his own lessons from Daniela prior to being frozen; Squalo had only been told he'd know why he was chasing the brat when he caught Basil. And that the brat was to be alive when he was done.

So here he was chasing a remarkably slippery teenager across Europe and Asia, which was only the second time he'd done this; the first time had been a lot easier, as his 'victim' at the time had been Dino and Skies were hard to kill. That had been a favour that Reborn had called in from Viper, and fulfilling it for Mammon had gotten his fellow Guardian to take over the Varia accounts when Squalo had taken it on. It had been more like a vacation for him than anything else, with the side benefit of getting to see what Reborn had made of the clumsy Sky he'd known at School.

Normally he wouldn't play with his food. Not this much, anyway. Especially not with all of his instincts screaming at him that he should be guarding his wounded Sky, but his Sky's orders were orders. He'd been given a capture mission, rather than an assassination, and as the brat was able to use Dying Will Mode tiring him out was the simplest option.

There was also the fact that if he was being honest with himself, he was having fun. He might have to recruit the brat and step side-ways into the vacant Cloud Officer slot if Basil could keep himself out of Squalo's hands for another twenty-four hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm torn about whether the Varia get to steal Basil or not. Opinions, please? I do kinda want to write a more Cloudy!Squalo, but I could also do that in a separate fic.


	11. Still Chasing Rain

He finally runs Basil back down in Japan. The brat is good; he’s not going all out - not with the injunction that the Rainlet is to survive - but he’s using more technique than he expected to need. Given he’s had more than enough time to get to know Iemitsu and there is also an Arcobaleno who works with the CEDEF, he suspects that Lal Mirch is responsible for much of the brat’s more practical training. He certainly moves like the one or two COMBUSIN members he’s run into in the past.

He hopes it was Mammon’s fellow Arcobaleno; he has to give who ever it was credit who had done most of the training. If it was Sawada who was responsible, he’d have to kill the bastard. He’d been one of the people arguing _against_ defrosting his Sky, and that was unforgivable - and the fact that the man had no Guardians of his own made his skin _crawl_.

The way the Rainlet is talking, though, that makes him pay more attention to his verbal sparring. Even when he switches the language he uses, the brat’s register is archaic. It clearly isn’t an intentional affectation, the way some of his own apparent verbal tics were. When he refers to Sawada as “Master” for the third time, Squalo flinches. No fifteen year old should be referring to his boss that way - if Xanxus had tried to suggest that Bel do so, he’d have found some way to make it clear how very unacceptable the idea was.

That flinch, accompanied as it was by the fact that he was holding back to ensure that the brat survive - thanks to his orders and his own growing awareness that the Rainlet would make a good addition to the Varia - created a sufficient opening for him to escape. Again. He was glad that he was doing this solo; that would have been embarrassing to have had witnessed, even by his fellow guardians.

(Lussuria was trying to get the Boss back into something like fighting shape, before anyone realised that he had been released from the ice. Bel was incapable of not killing his target, or of not using extreme prejudice. They’d learned that the hard - and messy - way when he was eight, and no one had particularly wanted to test whether he could be taught not to after the observers’ reports. That was the reports of the two observers who _survived_ the Prince’s mission. Mammon was tied up weaving a number of illusions that needed to be substantial, and needed to focus on those. Including the one of Squalo that made it look like he was still in Italy and the illusion that the Boss was still in his icy prison.)

He had at least succeed in pushing the brat into spending more than an hour in Hyper Dying Will Mode, so he wasn’t going to be able to go very far. The moment he went Active again, or let down his defenses he’d find him again. He'd drag the brat back to Italy with him, come hell or high water.


	12. Rain, Captured

He has to admit surprise when Basil leads him to an Active Sky, a Flame Aware Rain and a cousin. He's officially been Xanxus' senior Guardian for close to a decade, with the associated rights and responsibilities. That means he's seen the portraits of the first generation, and with the exception of a few minor variations in hair color, he'd think he was looking at Giotto, G and Ugetsu.

It surprises him, but he recovers quickly. His cousin - Hayato Gokudera, if he remembers correctly, is a named hitman, the protégée of Trident Shamal, a potential member of the Varia, but wasn't on the radar as a potential recruit himself. Yet. Easy enough to deal with, especially at this short a range; someone - not him - really needed to fix the boy's over specialization. The Flame Aware Rain reminds him of one of the swordsmen he’s fought. More so when the boy pulls a sword, but it takes him very little time to realise that he’s basically untrained, for all that he has excellent reflexes. Definite potential there.

The little Sky is definitely attached to the two other boys. He flips over into Dying Will Mode almost as soon as they’re down. A Dying Will shot if he’s not mistaken. Which means ... there. The Sun Arcobaleno. Fine. Skies are valuable; he’s here for the Active Rain brat, not any of those three, and he’s under no illusions about his ability to take on an Arcobaleno who has something he’s protecting, the way this one has. 

The Skylet is easy enough to deal with though, for all that Skies are powerhouses; given that he’s used to sparring with Xanxus and had chased a trained Dino across Asia, a half-trained barely Active Sky is no match for him. He has to give him credit for trying to protect what he suspects are the boy’s Guardian candidates, though.

And the Rainlet is even better than he thought; he’s still on his feet, still trying to protect the Sky. Which is even better, as it means the brat isn’t bonded to a Sky himself. It’s the only reason Squalo can even attack the little Sky, truth be told - that and the fact he’s not trying to kill him. He’s not leaving without the Rainlet though, so the moment the Sky drops out of Dying Will mode he snatches the brat up, and knocks him out with his own Flames.

The fact that the baby Sky was wearing those gloves registers as he jumps away, with the Rain he came for over his shoulder, the ornate box in his pocket. They do complete the image of him being Primo reborn - why does he suspect he’s going to be back in Japan within the month?


	13. Cloud or Rain

He’s not surprised when he dumps Basil - who’ll need a new code name - in a seat on the Varia’s jet, and the brat sleeps for the entire flight back to Italy. He doubts he slept for the entire period that he’s been chasing him. Probably didn’t eat much, either. 

Bel, and the Boss’s bond with him has made him soft. He used to hate kids, and now he’s getting all fucking paternal over Sawada’s apprentice. Bah. He’ll have to take one of the Prince’s annihilation missions at this rate just to feel clean again.

He pours the kid into one of the bucket seats and then piles his bags on top of him to wedge him in place. Using the brat as a luggage rack makes him feel a little better, and there's no way the Rainlet's waking up without the aid of either a Sky or a Sun. He takes the roads back to the compound a little too fast, but the police won't stop a known Varia vehicle. They’re too well paid to turn a blind eye, and for those too stupid to take the bribes, well, they’re cowed by the bullpen tales about what happened the last time someone tried stopping Bel.

He's right. The brat sleeps all his way back, even when he drifts the car into the drive to the compound. He even sleeps through being uncovered again and slung over Squalo's shoulder for the fourth time. He might have overdone the Tranquility aspect of his Flame just a bit.

He gets a raised eyebrow when he dumps the Rainlet in front of Xanxus, but his Sky’s eyes are more orange than red, closer to the classical Vongola shade than normal. Lussuria, already lit up with Sun Flames, pokes the brat in the forehead, only for him to wake up with a start, dropping straight into Dying Will Mode.

“Xanxus-dono, Sawada-dono will be -“ Squalo flinches as the first words out of the Rainlet’s mouth again make it clear that either the CEDEF’s head has a twisted sense of humour or there's something more perverse going on. He hopes the sense of humour is all it is. Because right now, he can feel Xanxus’s flames rising through their bond, and whilst they have some of the same taste that they did when he bonded Bel a decade previously, there's a dangerous, bloody edge that reminds him of the rage that led to the coup attempt.

“That bastard has you calling him _Dono_?” The room is now heavy with Storm-tainted Sky Flames, Xanxus straightening from his customary slouch - something, possibly the intuition which seems to have awoken while he was on ice, prodding him to life. The Flames lick at Squalo through his guardian bond and he basks in their warmth briefly, before removing the Rain ring he’d received from Ottavo and pocketing it, and then pulling the Cloud one from where it normally sat on a chain around his neck and slipped it on his living hand.

The Dying Will Flame on Basil’s forehead fizzled out as genuine anger at Iemitsu feeds Xanxus’s Flames to the point where their weight makes it clear they're almost about to physically manifest.

“Come here, trash.” Basil does so, though he's very obviously reluctant. He has to give the brat credit for the fact the kid moves, and his spine is as straight as it is, because Sawada's almost certainly been telling tales out of school, painting the Varia as out of control lunatics. He does however flinch slightly when one of Xanxus's hands lights up - but unlike most people calms almost immediately at the red-orange flames. Which is telling.

Boss has always been better with the Storm facet of his Flames rather than the Sky facet. Capable enough to pull tricks that even Bel and Coyote Nougat struggled to use with comparative ease. Tricks like the one that whips around Sawada's apprentice in the next few minutes, burning away the foreign Sky traces that cover the brat, erasing their effects.

He wraps his fist around the Rain Ring in his pocket, remembering Ottava - Daniela's - warning. Could he be Xanxus's Cloud, and let this brat be his Rain?


	14. One More.

"I can keep you away from him, but it'll cost." Basil looks from the Boss to him and back again and Squalo can see the moment he makes a decision. The brat nods and manages to contain his flinch as the Boss's Flames shade closer to orange, but he still backs out of immediate reach. Squalo can tell it's instinctual, and pulls his hand out of his pocket. 

"I'll let you into a secret, brat. I'm not only capable of being the Boss's Rain Guardian, which means," he opens his fist to reveal the Rain Ring in its centre, "he's not trying to make himself into another Iemitsu." There's a wide eyed nod, and suddenly there are Rain Flames rising to meet the Sky Flames that still saturate the room. Rain Flames almost as pure as Bel's Storm Flames and just as desperate as the Prince's had been when he’d trailed Lussuria home eight years earlier. 

That bond had been created between a Sky at the peak of his condition, and a well-trained eight year old. This one was forming between a Sky still healing from a decade on ice, and an exhausted teenager running on fumes.

It ends with his Sky and the brat on the floor, Bel's Flames eating through the door, a swirl of Mist Flames forming into Mammon, and him Propagating Luss's Flames just so the Sun can keep the pair of exhausted idiots breathing.

Neither should even have attempted what they just had, but the Boss was stubborn as hell, and the brat obviously equally so. He probably could have stopped it, but. But he didn’t have the heart to deny the Rainlet what a Guardian bond could offer, the sense of home, of safety, of being needed. Not given the fact his _previous_ Sky had been willing to sacrifice him. As proud as he was of his abilities, Squalo couldn’t - wouldn’t - have been in a position to go toe-to-toe with Iemitsu on his own, if the man had decided to step between him and his quarry.

Squalo probed the bond, trying to get a feel for it, a taste for what it would bring with it, given the way it had tried to entwine with his Rain bond with the Boss. He's only half surprised when it feels like a sibling bond. From what he knows of the Boss's history and that of 'Basil' their childhoods hadn't been all that different. Given he was well aware of how sexually aggressive one or two individuals had been with the Boss before his sojourn on ice - 

Shit, if that had been one of the things they'd bonded over, let it have been another CEDEF brat, not the Sky he'd been taught to call 'Master'. At least the Boss had been allowed to shoot his aggressors. He'd even remember to go to fucking Mass, because they weren't ready to go to war with the CEDEF. Not yet. The Boss was the stronger Sky, but he needed time to regain his stamina if this was going to come down to the two of them going head-to-head with Dying Will Flames.


	15. Cavallone Sky

"So what did you do with his body, Squalo?" The voice comes from behind him, and he sweeps round, killing intent flaring, more than ready to do harm to any intruders, given that one of his fellow Guardians and his Sky are defenceless right now. 

His killing intent fades somewhat when he realises that it’s Dino. Skies are hard to kill, and Dino had been - and might still be - a friend.

The Cavallone, for all he’s personally a nuisance, is one of the the Varia’s better customers. Not fussy about the details, providing good intelligence about the target and interesting challenges. Probably because he was more squeamish than the average mafioso, if the truth be told. The Sun Arcobaleno had definitely had a hand in beating the appreciation for choosing the appropriate tool for the job into his school friend in the years that he’d been Dino’s tutor.

It also explains how he can be here, inside the Compound, and still be breathing. That and the fact that for all he hides it, Dino is a Sky. With all the foibles of one, and used to the allowances that the whole benighted Alliance makes for his Flame Type.

He carries through with the swing anyway, knowing that Dino was perfectly capable of blocking it with his whip, and pissed off by the question for some reason he wasn't ready to try and fathom yet.

"Voi! Brat's alive and well. He's just working through some shit somewhere safer than where he was before." The Bronco's whip wraps round the length of his sword, coiling around it's hilt, and Squalo yanks, pulling the Cavallone Boss towards him. "What's his survival to you, anyway, trash?”

A flick of his wrist has his sword arm free of the whip coiled around it, and he lifts his living arm to shove the Sky - not his Sky, but potential ally - away. The movement draws Dino's eyes towards the single piece of jewellery he wore on his living hand, and the apparent change in the focus gem.

“What’s with the Cloud Ring, Squalo?” The question is blurted out, obviously not the response Dino had been planning to make.

He’s tempted to laugh at the slightly panicked expression on his school friend’s face, but instead he lights the ring on his finger up with purple flames. It’s getting easier, now he’s wearing the right ring. Not as easy as summoning his Rain would be with the ring he handed to Basil, but easy enough now.

Dino's poker face is far better than his father's, which probably explains a good half of how he's resurrected his Familiga, but right now Squalo's rather sensitised to Sky Flames and notices the other's flare in something like alarm at the purple flame swirling round his hand.

“How long -“

“I’ve been my Sky’s Cloud for a Decade, trash. Now explain why you’re so interested in the brat’s whereabouts, before I try out one of Visconti’s tricks on you. I don’t think it would be fatal.” He brushes the purple flame against his weapon, and watches it dance down the etchings in the blade.

"My little brother was worried." Sky Flames swirl round Dino’s whip hand.

“Try again, trash. I know your family. If you’d had a younger brother, the Old Bastard would’t have sent Reborn to beat you into shape. One of us would have just been sent to cut your throat so that he could inherit.”

“Reborn has a new student.” 

Squalo blinked at the affection in the Cavallone’s voice, and remembered where he’d last seen the Sun Arcobaleno. “Tiny brunette clone of Primo?” He made it a question, but he already knew the answer. And knew that Dino had seen the same portraits in the Family Wing.


	16. The Truth is Slippery

“Tsunayoshi Sawada.” Dino named his little brother, reassured by the way Squalo was being possessive of Basil, who he’d been angry with Iemitsu with for trying to sacrifice, allowing his own fondness for the little Sky to seep into his voice.

“He’s  _Iemitsu’s_?!” The shock was genuine. He’d felt the little Sky’s protectiveness over his Guardian candidates. There was also the fact that the Cavallone Don had been willing to brave the Varia Compound to find out whether the Rainlet was still alive on his behalf. He was nothing like what he’d have thought a child of the CEDEF head would be.

“Sawada has - more or less - abandoned his family in Japan for the last decade. Tsuna is his mother’s son, not his father’s.” Dino paused, considering what else to say to the Cloudy-Rain. He allowed his Sky Flames to lick out, swirling out around the swordsman, trying to work out what to say. What would make it clear that Tsuna wasn’t necessarily the Varia’s enemy.

He listens to his Flames, reaching for words, but instead of finding them, hissed, his eyes widening as he read the Sky Flame traces all over the man in front of him, not understanding how he’d missed them before.

“You’ve gotten  _Xanxus_  back.” He almost regrets saying anything when Squalo flips straight into his predatory Varia Assassin personality, completely ready to end any threat. That reaction, in and of itself was telling. It said that Squalo had his Sky back and his Sky was injured.

He holds his hands up, away from the whip at his waist, voluntarily reducing his ability to defend himself. Desperate to stop this from escalating any further.

He can see Squalo’s fingers twitching, wanting his sword. He didn’t want to test whether he could survive a Varia Officer attempting to kill him in defence of his Commander and Sky. He probably could survive Squalo, but it would push him to his limits, and would require that neither any of the other Guardians, nor the Sky in question would come to his aid. And there was no way that he was the only Guardian present with an injured Sky.

“If you’ve got Xanxus back, why the hell is Timeteo trying to push the Familiga onto my little brother? He’s fourteen, Squalo, and a civilian, and not ready for this. Not at all ready. Even with Reborn training him. Merciful Mary, he was  _Sealed_  up until a few weeks ago.” He infuses his Flames into his words, desperate to reach his old school friend.

Squalo’s left fist tightens into a fist and he turns away, slightly. Not enough to be an insult, but far enough to make it clear that he isn’t going to attack immediately.

“You would be the first of the Alliance’s Skies to realise, wouldn’t you, Haneuma.” Not the response Dino was expecting. He knew more than most about what had happened during the Cradle Incident, but not all of it. Enough to know that there was more that he hadn’t been told; and was Flame aware enough to know that for the last eight years Squalo had been cut off from his Sky, which had told it’s own story, given that he hadn’t gone off the deep end the way the other Vongola boys’ _bonded_ Guardians had.


	17. And the Storm's Madness Contagious

The Mist Flames that swirled to life behind him, and the sudden, threatening presence confirms his guess that there had to be at least one more bonded Guardian present; that the Guardian was an  _Arcobaleno_ , was just the icing on the cake of Dino’s opinion that Timoteo was losing his mind.

How had anyone missed that Mammon was a Guardian? Yes, the Sky traces could be hidden, though they were now very obvious, given he knew what he was looking for; but the fact that they had stayed, and stayed within the Compound, for eight  _years_  when they had previously been known to be as illusive and prone to disappearing as their Element should have told people that there was something holding them here. And for an Element as strong as one of the Arcobaleno, that something could almost only be a Sky.

And there were few Skies, and fewer still could call to one of the I Prescelti Sette; Dino knew that first hand, because he’d tried to call to Reborn and failed. Reborn had laughed and reassured him, one of the few times that he ever had, that he was still one of the stronger Skies of this generation. Just not strong enough. Unlike, apparently, Xanxus.

And to hold the Alliance together - and to use and wear the Vongola Ring - one had to have that kind of strength.

“ _Sealed?_ ” The question takes the form of a single word, spoken by the Mist behind him, but wrapped up in that single word was a whole series of questions and a demand for answers. There was also hatred. Hatred and anger at the very idea of the Sealing of a Flame.

“Sealed. By the Ninth, at Iemitsu’s instigation. Reborn finally got him to break through the Seal, but -“ the rest of what he was going to say was cut off by the rapid thickening of Mist Flames within the room and the rapidly cycling illusions as the Arcobaleno struggled to keep control of their temper.

“Even Verde wouldn’t - what else have those men  _done?_ ” He’s only paid for Prince the Ripper’s services  _once_. The young Storm specialised in seemingly impossible mass annihilations, and there had been a Familiga who hadn’t gotten the message about not engaging in human trafficking in Cavallone territory. He’d made himself watch - how could he do otherwise when he’d paid for their deaths? And he vividly remembered the madness that had danced across the face of the demon child. To see that same madness flicker across the faces of both the Mist and the Cloudy Rain present in the room was terrifying.


	18. Decimo, not Nono.

He was a  _Sky_. He refused to cower, even before these enraged Guardians, but Merciful Mary and all the Saints, it was tempting.

Mammon’s head tilted, and there was another sign that the Mist was indeed bonded to a Sky, and a strong one, as another Sky’s Flames swirled around him, and words in a voice Dino recognised - but hadn’t heard in ten years - spilled from their lips.

“Tell the trash - tell him despite what will appear to happen, we are not the enemy, and that not all of the family are without honour. Tell him that, Haneuma. And, that for their sins, that my father - and his father’s - lives are forfeit; that they have broken even our laws.” Then the Flames were gone, and Mammon floated limply for a moment.

Dino winced. That was tantamount to a declaration of war and he should report that, but he respected Xanxus for making it, and for sheltering Basil too much to warn anyone. Not when he’d seen the Ninth and Iemitsu’s sins for himself.

“I am the Cavallone  _Decimo_ ; my loyalty is not Timoteo’s or Iemitsu’s to command. My alliance is with the Tenth Vongola generation, whether Xanxus or Tsunayoshi holds the Ring. Not the Ninth.” His declaration was quiet, more intended for himself than anyone else, but there was an answering swirl of Sky Flames, that curled around him, and made him shudder at their strength.

Squalo’s grin was shark-like. He returned it, his own wolfish, and stood in significant contrast with his own, normally mild expression. “Tell Xanxus that I’ve returned to Japan; Tsuna needs a Sky to teach him everything Harmony is capable of; even Reborn only knows it's power intellectually and as his father refuses -“ he let his sentence trail off, and took his leave.


	19. Cavallone to Japan

Dino stretches, thankful for the fact he'd been able to get the Cavallone private plane back; it wasn't as luxurious as it could be, but it did have more adequate leg room than any scheduled flight did, and it also meant that he wasn't bound to scheduled timings. It also meant that the plane was quiet, which meant he could sleep and chew over the things he'd learned.

He was relieved that the Varia had no intent of forcing a Ring battle on his little brother; but disturbed by the fact that Nono and Imeitsu had been so very cavalier with the younger generation; Sealing, and sending their apprentices - especially one as potentiallly valuable as Basil - on suicide missions. He hadn't realised just how bad it had gotten; yes he'd known that the Vongola had lost three heirs - all Skies, but no one had panickied; there had still been one left, the strongest. 

Except that Squalo's words and how quick his Flames had be to become defensive implied that Nono had had no intent of releasing Xanxus from whatever prison he'd been kept in, and that however the man had ended back in Varia hands he was - or had been - severely injured. From what Reborn had implied, Tsuna must therefore have been Timoteo's back up option even then, yet he'd still Sealed him.

There had been no mutters about other families needing to step forward to lead the alliance, and perhaps there should have been - he knew that he had a Vongola great-grandmother, though she hadn't been a Sky, he was; and he suspected, based on her appearance that the Giglio Nero Donna had Vongola blood even more recently than he did. (Not that he wanted to lead the Alliance. His own Familiga kept him busy enough.) And that said nothing about any cadet lines which threw Skies occassionally - like the one that he now guessed must have produced Xanxus. Or any bastards from Enrico, Massimo and Federico.

Timoteo was now the longest serving of the Vongola Dons, and had been even before this mess had begun, before Dino himself had been dropped into Reborn's tender care, when he'd had four heirs. Four at least mostly competent heirs who only needed to put a little work into assembling their Rainbows. Except he hadn't, instead hoarding power in his own hands. 

He himself didn't have a full set of Elements, but that had as much to do with politics, and his desire to rebuild his Familiga first. But if he'd indicated any sort of willingness, most of the Flame Active people within the Vongola Alliance would come running to see if they "fitted" him. Which meant all that Nono would have had to do to find at least one of his sons a full set would have to been to host a general ball, yet he hadn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Dino's training of Tsuna, see [Sibling Skies](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10482618).


	20. New Rain

"Xanxus-dono," the glass in Xanxus's hand cracked under the pressure of his grip, but he resisted the urge to throw it at his new teenage Rain. Whilst Squalo would have just ducked and sworn at him, Basil - the brat needed a new name - was still too fragile for what passed for Varia normal. But the Shark-trash had been right to bring him home, the same way Lussuria had been right to drag Bel home with him. The brat was strong, and sticking it to Iemitsu by stealing his apprentice was just the icing on the cake, "if these Rings are fake -" which the brat promptly demonstrated, by flaring his Rain through the half Ring in his hand, "then Sawada-dono has them with him, and is taking them to his son."

“Japan?” The temptation to catch the CEDEF Sky away from Italy, from where the man was constantly surrounded by loyal sycophants, and had his own - albeit failed - Arcobaleno keeping him alive, was incredibly tempting. So tempting that it could easily be a trap.

“Namimori. Where Squalo-dono caught up with me, Xanxus-dono.” Was the brat’s response. There was no obsequiousness in his voice, but the insistence on the honorific grated. The whisky in the glass boiled as he attempted to reign in the Flames he wanted to throw at someone. Anyone. Where was his Shark? Helping him focus was his damn job.

“Brat. Stop fucking calling me ‘master’. And I’m not calling you Basil, so tell me what your actual bloody name is, kid. Ridiculous fucking Vongola traditions. Why the fuck is that fucker ape-ing them if he can’t even be bothered to bond with his fucking Elements?” Fuck. The kid was about to burst into tears. This is why he’d left raising Bel to Lussuria and Squalo. He didn’t _do_ emotions other than anger. “Go tell my fucking Shark-trash to get the fucking plane ready. We’re going to Japan.”


	21. Sky to Sky

Lussuria is really the one with the taste for the dramatic out of the six of them; Squalo has yet to figure out how precisely Basil was influencing the rest of them, but it’s definitely Lussuria’s fault that they’ve managed to end up on a cliff above the Sawada brat and his Guardian candidates. They fall into their standard formation easily; he stands to Xanxus’s Right, and has their stolen Rain tucked in behind him, where he’d be hidden by his Flames, and Bel to Xanxus’s Left, much to Levi’s silent annoyance. Levi and Lussuria were behind the three of them, and Mammon perched on Bel’s shoulder, pacifier tucked inside their uniform.

Half a dozen teenagers, in varying states of Flame Active-ness are arrayed beneath them, along with two younger children, both of who were completely Active, and fairly strong. There was also the Sun Arcobaleno, his weapon in hand, and the de la Stella brat who’d disappeared six months earlier.

He leaned into the Flames that his Sky flared; he was still getting used to having the teen back, and the weight of them was reassuring. Of the teens though, only the Sawada brat himself didn’t step back, and Squalo narrowed his eyes a little, realising the boy’s focus was on the teen behind him. The protectiveness of his Cloudy side, which he’d spent so much time feeding, when he stepped up to run the Varia in Xanxus’s absence roared to life, and suddenly his own Flames were tangled with his Sky’s, all but obscuring the other Varia Flames.

Xanxus followed their plan to the letter, Lussuria squawking in mock alarm at the handful of Wrath Flames he started to call up, and there. There was Iemitsu; there was the man this trap had been set for.

(He allowed his Sky to concentrate on the other Sky, and paid attention to the baby Sky below them; the teen was doing well to shake off the Flames of the two Skies who were engaging in a battle of Wills above him. Dino had obviously done what he said he would when he’d left their Compound. But the Bucking Horse was nowhere to be seen?)

He swore subvocally, when the Cervello appeared. That family were creepy, even by his standards - which Lussuria and Belphegor had expanded dramatically. Their announcement of an Inheritance Battle, and their peculiar relationship with the Vongola Rings complicated the situation. They’d been hoping to avoid actually battling the teens, and it was going to take all of their respective skills to avoid killing the brats.

And why the hell was Iemitsu looking so fucking happy?

That made no fucking sense at all, and he exchanged a wary glance with his Sky. Xanxus shook his head and reabsorbed his handful of Flames before getting Mammon to throw up an illusion that would allow them to disperse and watch their ‘opponents’.

(He grumbled quietly, when he realised that he was going to have to let Basil have the sword-wielder; he’d drill the Rain in the morning, but he was pretty good with his Flames and that boomerang thing he wielded. That left him to face the Cloud, but the one teen who had any Cloud Flames at all was in possession of the Storm half-ring, which put him up against Belphegor. Where was his fucking opponent?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a fem!Tsuna AU that breaks off from here, starting with it's own version of this scene (from Tsuna's PoV) in [Sky to Sky. If the title seems familiar, that's why.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10399191)


	22. The Sun Battle

The ring and it's nature made him uneasy. Made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end with the way it sucked, greedily at his Flames, and dulled the inter-Guardian bond.

But Lussuria stuck to the script anyway. His lust was more pronounced than Squalo had expected, but then the boy that held the Sun Ring was  _very_  much to his tastes. Especially once Lussuria had hit him several times. He could feel - and  _see_  - that much; it wasn't as if their uniforms hid anything.

It wasn't until the teen Sun had managed to  _break_  Lussuria's knee plate, with a single, grossly overpowered punch. It made their Sun's lust spike uncontrollably, and it didn't respond to Squalo leaning on him; nor did it allow his Rain Flames through it.

Fucking Cervello. Fucking Iemitsu. Lussuria was going to do something  _Stupid_ , and he had no desire to break in a new Sun. Nor to try and find one that would fit in with their particular brand of crazy. He was a Sun; they healed fast, and better to put him down, than have him kill one of the kids. He - and Xanxus - had promised Dino they wouldn't kill any of them.

"Voooooiiiii, stop being a fucking perverted idiot, Lussuria." He flicked his wrist, hitting Lussuria in the small of his back with one of the explosive cartridges he usually used with his Sword. It detonated on contact, knocking him out, and blowing a hole in the side of the ring. A sharp nod to Mammon had them using their tentacles to snag the now unconscious Sun and dragging him from the ring. Once he was close enough, Squalo yanked the chain with it's half-Ring from around his neck and threw it at the baby Sky, whose Rain caught it for him.

The Cervello announced the next battle, and Iemitsu said something that was inaudible on the Varia's side of the Ring, but whatever it was made the Flames of the baby Sky flare and darken until the Rain clamped his hand on the boy's bare skin and flooded the Sky's system with his Flames.

It really was a shame that he wouldn't get to face that kid. A swordsman and a Rain; he'd have to con him into a training spar or three after this. The boy had promise.

(He was also going to kick Lussuria's ass once he'd healed, and then hand him to Xanxus. They had rules about his perversions, the  _Idiot._ )

And where was his opponent, for that matter? There was still no sign of another Cloud - or the Cavallone for that matter. And he  _knew_  that Dino was in Japan; and with what the Bucking Horse had said, he wouldn't be missing this if there wasn't a  _very_  good reason.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments (including concrit) are love!
> 
>  
> 
> [Somewhere to leave Reborn! ideas](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Aoife_Prompt_Collection_KHR)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Remix/Rewrite] Almost More Storm Than Sky](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11532090) by [Night-Mare (Aoife)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoife/pseuds/Night-Mare)




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